Answers elusive in ‘unusually brutal’ Ellixson slaying

Answers elusive in ‘unusually brutal’ Ellixson slaying

More than seven weeks after the badly beaten body of Lindsay Louise Ellixson was found discarded in an East Baton Rouge Parish bayou, answers to what happened remain elusive.

Tight-lipped investigators still trying to solve the “unusually brutal and violent” killing of the 21-year-old re-iterated last week that they had not yet found a link to any other homicides.

“The investigation is still very much active and ongoing,” said Casey Rayborn Hicks, a spokeswoman for East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Sid Gautreaux. “We are in contact with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that are assisting with the investigation.”

Ellixson’s family declined comment, citing the ongoing case. But friends of the Orlando, Fla., native expressed frustration last week with the pace of the investigation.

“We just want some justice for her,” said Kris Wales, a friend from Livingston Parish who recalled Ellixson as an amiable young woman. “I do hope they find the person who did this.”

Others said they found it unnerving that the killer remains free.

“I wish I could find him,” said Clinton Allen Head, a Denham Springs man who dated Ellixson for nearly two years. “None of it makes sense to anybody.”

The investigation began Nov. 16 after boaters spotted Ellixson’s remains in the Claycut Bayou — near Tiger Bend Road, north of Hoo Shoo Too Road and west of the Amite River — and alerted law enforcement officials. Ellixson’s identity was confirmed through fingerprint analysis, and an autopsy determined she died from blunt-force trauma to the head, neck and chest.

Dr. Beau Clark, the parish coroner, ruled the death a homicide, but authorities have refused to elaborate on the condition of her body.

Ellixson’s adoptive mother has said she last heard from her daughter on Nov. 3. While Ellixson had moved away from home, she kept in regular contact with her family and had been talking about returning home.

“I think she was just kind of trying to explore the world,” Catherine Ellixson said in a November interview, describing her daughter’s time in Louisiana. “She had been home intermittently, but she was kind of doing her own thing.”

Authorities have been seeking to reconstruct Lindsay Ellixson’s final days, a period in which she appears to have drifted from place to place. On the social networking site MeetMe, she posted a series of increasingly desperate messages in which she warned of becoming homeless and solicited shelter from people in the area.

“It’s a disturbing and puzzling case,” said Capt. Doug Cain, a State Police spokesman.

Investigators thought they had a break in the case last month when leads brought them to the home of Christopher Disspayne, a convicted sex offender who has not been named a suspect in Ellixson’s death. A search of the 53-year-old’s Denham Springs home prompted authorities to book him with domestic abuse battery, stalking and failure to register as a sex offender, all counts that are unrelated to Ellixson.

Authorities asked anyone with information about Ellixson’s death contact the Sheriff’s Office at (225) 389-5000 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at (225) 344-STOP.